Based
down in Hollywood, Florida, John Fifield is coming from a quite unique
space in 21st century guitar based instrumental sounds. Combining
white hot instrumental fusion, straight ahead jazz, funk and even
rap/bass stylings, Fifields guitar approach is really eclectic
and for a good taste of his unique guitar sounds take a spin inside
the 2010 CD release of It Is What It Is... Besides DiMeola
and Connors, theres a definite Zappa like guitaristic influence
here, with Fifield spinning out speedy runs and fluid fretboard concepts
while getting ace backup from Ric Fierabracci (bass), Joe
Locke (vibes, synth), Joel Rosenblatt (drums), violinist
Christian Howes and others. The CD studio sound is great and
the packaging is also first rate with its colorful psychedelic graffiti
gatefold. For fans of daredevil fusion guitar pyrotechnics, John Fifields
It Is What It Is... is a pick to click. Fans will note that
hot on the heals of It Is What It Is... Fifield has also another
CD out entitled All Shades Of Blues, recorded with his
wife, singer Beverly Lewis-Fifield and a number of top session
players. Commenting on the release to mwe3.com in June 2010,
Fifield adds, All Shades Of Blues was just released within
the past few weeks. I produced and played on this one and, although
it's totally different than my solo album, we shot for the same level
of quality throughout. www.JohnFifield.com
mwe3.com
presents an interview with
JOHN FIFIELD
mwe3.com:
You've had a lot of experience as session musician and as a sideman.
Why and when did you decide to make the move to producer and recording
artist?
John Fifield: I dont know that Id really call it a move
from one thing to another, but would describe the shift as just another
way to express my musical being. Taking on the producer role was a
very natural progression and a transition I think a lot of musicians
make at some point or another. Session work for others has always
been kind of hit and miss for me, but I loved recording from
the very first time I got into a studio. The more opportunities I
had to record, the more I saw an almost unlimited potential for creative
expression and the more I wanted to learn about the whole process.
It was exciting and fun and still is.
On the artist side of things, I have done a fair amount of writing
through the years, so when I finally decided that it was time to make
a really definitive statement of my own, all of the elements were
already in place. Fortunately, everything came together at a time
when digital technology had advanced to the point where I could afford
a high-quality, recording setup in my home something I had
wanted for a very long time. Once the home studio was in place, I
was able to really begin developing ideas and start moving towards
creating quality product the way I wanted to make it. A great side
benefit is that it has also allowed me a lot more flexibility in taking
on session work from other sources.
An exciting development on the session front has been through my close
musical compatriot and friend (session drummer and mixing engineer),
Goran Rista. Goran and I have worked closely of the past few years
on a variety of music projects: he mixed the It Is What It Is
and All Shades Of Blues albums and I have played on a number
of projects he's been involved with, including his 2008 solo release,
Rista World. Goran has developed a unique online platform (see
www.gorangrooves.com)
that offers high-quality, affordable tracking, production and engineering
services to musicians and recording professionals worldwide. I am
part of the production team and also handle guitar chores along side
several other very fine players.
mwe3.com:
How did you evolve into writing, recording and performing in the jazz-rock
instrumental guitar world and can you mention some of your big guitar
and composing influences, rock, jazz and otherwise?
JF: The evolution was pretty organic and really began when I first
started playing guitar. About two years after I started playing, I
began taking lessons with a local legend on the Connecticut music
scene - guitarist, Bob Thompson. Bob turned me on to a whole universe
of instrumental music that I'd never heard or even conceived of before
then and it was that introduction that really jump started my deep
love affair with instrumental music of all kinds. Some of the most
lasting influences have been Chick Corea, Norwegian guitarist Terje
Rypdal, Wes Montgomery, Jeff Beck, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and a
couple of post-Miles, pre-Mahavishnu John McLaughlin solo recordings
- My Goals Beyond and Extrapolation. On top of that,
Bob is still probably one of the hippest players I've ever heard and
was as influential on my direction as anyone has been.
From a playing standpoint, a short list of guitar influences would
go something like this - Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, Duane Allman,
Allan Holdsworth, George Benson, Jeff Beck, Bill Nelson (of BeBop
Deluxe), Joe Pass, Mike Stern, John McLaughlin, Robben Ford, Pat Metheny,
Al DiMeola, Jimmy Page. A short list of non-guitar influences would
include, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, David Grisman, Oscar Peterson,
Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Bill Bruford, Jaco Pastorius, Joe Henderson,
Jean Luc Ponty, Jimmy Smith, Billy Cobham.
Compositionally, I'm kind of all over the place and really just absorbed
ideas from the music that I thought was cool and was listening to
at any particular time. The range is from straight-ahead jazz to commercial
pop vocal stuff and all points in between. Whatever got in through
osmosis, rattled around, fused together and comes out however it comes
out. Most musicians can hear the JLP and Chick Corea influences right
off the bat. Every now and then someone will pick up on the Gentle
Giant, Yes and Prince influences. The main thing I wanted to achieve
with the material on this album was to have strong, defined melodies
and arrangements on every track, no matter how different each might
be from another. One of the many qualities that I've admired about
the compositions of JLP and Chick Corea is their ability to take the
listener on a series of little musical trips throughout an album and
sometimes even within a single track. This was definitely the approach
I had in mind when I was writing, recording and producing It Is
What It Is...
mwe3.com:
What were your early studies like and can you remember your first
guitar?
JF: I remember my first guitar vividly - a cheap Yamaha steel string
acoustic that was bequeathed by one of my older brothers. The strings
were about a half inch off the neck and it was so difficult to play,
it's amazing I didn't give up or suffer permanent digital deformities.
My earliest studies consisted of a turntable and my Hendrix and Led
Zeppelin albums. My first teacher, Kevin Moran, taught me some blues
and funk things, and began to broaden my horizons by teaching me a
few tunes that had harmonic structures and progressions that leaned
a little closer to the jazz world. My first major 9th chord was love
at first strum.
The next milestone in my development was hooking up with Bob Thompson
for lessons. From theory to technique, Bob opened up a whole new world
for me.
Next up was about a year of private study with Reggie Wooten (eldest
brother of the legendary Wooten clan) while I was living in Norfolk,
VA. My mom would shuttle me over to the Wooten family home in Newport
News on Sunday mornings so I could learn about chord substitutions
and chord melody playing and otherwise sit in awe just watching this
guy.
The next major step in my musical development was when I started studying
privately with Dave Santoro (Jerry Bergonzi's longtime bassist and
musical compatriot) at the Hartford Conservatory. After a few months
of private study, I attended classes full-time during the 1979-1980
school year. Although straight-ahead jazz was clearly not the path
I wanted to take, the theory and exposure to people who could not
only teach, but were also monster players in that style, was invaluable.
mwe3.com:
What guitars did you feature on the It Is What It Is album?
How about amps and strings and what pedal effects were used on the
CD?
JF: I ended up changing out almost every piece of gear during the
course of the project, but instrument-wise, the one constant in the
electric arsenal was my Fender Strat. It's been modified over the
years and has EMG pickups, I think, that can be used in single or
dual coil mode with a pull (dual coil) or push (single coil) of the
volume pot. This guitar is also outfitted with a Roland GK-2A MIDI
converter which connects to a GR-33 sound module/pedal board. I really
need to update that end of things, but for now it continues to serve
the limited purpose for which it's most often used - sequencing parts
for tunes I'm recording and demoing and occasionally for tracking
simple, live, synth-like parts.
Along the way, I bought a Carvin AE-185 which has a pretty awesome
tonal range. I used that on quite a few parts and because of the action
and shape of the fingerboard, found it to be especially good for playing
slide.
The most recent addition was my Mason custom, the guitar I'm holding
on the insert photo of the album. It was hand made by Ft. Lauderdale
luthier, Bob Mason. Bob has been setting up and maintaining my guitars
for years and I'd played some of the instruments he'd built, but when
I picked up this particular guitar, I knew it was made for me from
note one. I had never experienced that before with any other instrument,
so needless to say, I HAD to have that guitar.
The only acoustic I used throughout the album was a Seagull steel
string with a cutaway. Not a Martin or Taylor in terms of sound quality,
but it mic-ed up quite nicely and did the job.
I've been using Elixir strings on all of my instruments for the past
few years since they last so friggin' long and maintain a much more
consistent sound quality throughout the life of the strings. They're
a bit duller-sounding than non-coated strings fresh out of the package,
but that tonal difference really only became an issue on some acoustic
guitar parts. There were a few tracks that I had to re-record because
I needed to hear the brightness that the Elixir strings just don't
have.
As
far as guitar sounds, amps and processing, I used anything and everything
at my disposal at any given time, so there were no sacred cows - mic-ed
amp, direct out, digital, analog, in the box, out of the box, whatever
worked is what I went with. Amps included a Line 6 Flextone III, a
borrowed Mesa Boogie and a borrowed Fender Twin. I was actually really
happy with the results from the Flextone by taking a direct line from
the amp to my tube preamp (an Audio Technologies TMA-2) and into my
DAW. I also used a Tech 21 Sansamp PSA-1 direct to my DAW and did
the same thing with a Boss GT-6 processor/pedal board. With the GT-6,
once I found a patch I wanted to work with, I'd strip all the effects
out and tweak the raw patch until I got what I wanted, record dry
and add effects afterwards as needed.
mwe3.com: Regarding keyboards and guitar synth, how does performing
guitar synth and keyboards compare or contrast with your guitar playing?
JF: Looks like I'll have to 'fess up about the keyboard playing. I
am not a keyboard player by any stretch of the imagination
and only ended up playing some simple keyboard parts when I couldn't
cover the parts using the guitar synth. I would take things in short
sections, run through the progressions until I could play the parts
comfortably at tempo, track one section and then move on to the next.
I played as many of the single note synth lines as I could using the
guitar synth, but in more than a few instances had to play a part
into the system as a MIDI track, clean up all of the extraneous MIDI
goop and then set about assigning a patch or two. This actually worked
out much better from a production standpoint since I had the flexibility
of demoing a variety of sounds before committing to anything.
mwe3.com:
What was it like working with violinist Christian Howes on It Is
What It Is as the CD features your guitar in tandem with Christian
on some very intricate lines. How did you meet up with and just how
amazing was it to work with all the other great musicians on the CD?
Speaking about Joe Locke, he just released an album a year or two
ago and Ric Fierabracci is a legend of the bass.
JF: Let's go in reverse order and start with Ric. Not only is Ric
a legend of the bass, but he's also been a great friend and was an
integral part of helping me get this album made. Ric was part DAW
and remote session mentor, project motivator, mix and production reality-checker,
musician matchmaker and bass player. After tracking bass on Mulata,
Ric introduced me to Christian Howes and Joel Rosenblatt, whom I'd
heard of before, but never met or worked with. Because of tour schedules
and other professional commitments, all of the sessions with Chris,
Joel and Ric were done remotely. The process was the same for each
of them: I would send a detailed audio demo, a chart and the actual
working files they could load into their systems - a stereo drum track,
mono click, mono bass, and a stereo track of the rest of the harmonic
and melodic instruments - and we would talk by phone before they started
tracking. This process worked really well because each of these guys
are stellar players and because I made sure I was as together on my
end as possible. I wanted everyone to be able to spend their time
focused on making music instead of trying to figure things out.
I had originally met and worked with Joe Locke in 1987 when I was
working with tenor sax legend, John "Spider" Martin. I hadn't
worked with or had any contact with Joe in years, but while I was
in the process of writing "Sophie", knew that he was the
guy I wanted to play on it. I got in touch with him and after hearing
the rough demo of the tune, he agreed to do it. It's not the most
complex set of changes he's ever played over, but I think his playing
on that one contains some of most tasteful soloing I've ever heard
on vibes.
Christian
is truly a master musician in all respects and navigated through the
most intricate of lines without breaking a sweat. When it comes to
recording, he keeps things very spontaneous and typically wouldn't
look at a chart or listen to a demo until shortly before session time.
More often than not, we would talk while he was en route to the session
and he would sight read/sing certain sections over the phone to make
sure he knew what I was looking for, and that was that. He came up
with the string arrangements for The Music Box and Acting completely
off-the-cuff. We finally got a chance to meet in person this past
January when he was in the area for a gig. The state of modern recording
- you get to meet the musicians after the album is done!
mwe3.com: How would you compare the guitar styles on your album with
your playing and production on the Beverly Lewis' solo album All
Shades Of Blues, which was released very quickly after your album
came out.
JF: The way I look at it is that both albums are just different facets
of a musical whole. I've never been a blues player per se, but I grew
up listening to all of the great blues/rock stuff from the late '60s
and early '70s, and played enough in the style over the years, so
I know what sounds right within the genre.
The overall production approach was the same as on It Is What It
Is - start with the best possible material, come up with interesting
arrangements that work within the context of what you're doing and
use the absolute best players you can find. It was a lot of fun to
develop parts and arrangements, especially some of the horn arrangements,
that fit the tunes and Bev's vocal style and sound. I am really pleased
with how the album turned out and it's been getting pretty consistent
airplay on a number of NPR affiliate stations around the country.
mwe3.com: Can you say something about plans moving forward including
new recordings and composing and what direction you'd like to take
your music in the future?
JF: I have been thinking about a number of projects that all cover
very different stylistic ground. I will definitely be doing an instrumental
project that's more jazz/blues oriented and decidedly less production-heavy
than It Is What It Is. I've also been formulating a concept
piece that combines audio and visual elements. Bev and I will be continuing
her mission with some live gigs and continued recording in the jazz/blues/swing
vein, so there is definitely more good stuff coming down the pipeline.
Thanks to John Fifield @ www.JohnFifield.com